Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Round Four: Dictionary Game

The word for this round is "actazerity."

Consulting the New Oxford KretZikan Dictionary is strictly forbidden.

8 comments:

Marcus said...

actazerity -- from baseball jargon, the attitude promulgated and embodied by a combination of oxymoronic qualities such as relaxed awareness or loose seriousness. From those attitudes Manny Acta tried to encourage as a major league manager.

The actazerity of his fiery insouciance impressed us all.

Rob said...

actazerity n. 1. a measure of luminosity pertaining to compounds which contain the radioactive element actinium (no. 89 on the periodic table.)2. used to describe any chemical reaction which emits a blue glow in the dark.

"The glow sticks that the Halloweeners carried had a peculiar actazerity."

Anonymous said...

The state or act of being a bad poet and a worst terrorist.

Geoffrey A. Landis said...

Actazerity, n.: The spiritual philosophy of the Actazarian religion. Actazarianism was founded in 1877 by self-declared prophet Stavros Zarian, a follower of theosophist Madame Blavatsky. The principles of actazerity were written in pencil on twenty-three sheets of yellow legal paper in an unknown language that could only be interpreted by Zarian; Zarian's "translations" of those principles were said to vary day by day, depending on Zarian's whims and moods. Actazarianism was a widespread cult in the midwestern US in the late 19th century, with as many as 40 actazarian communes founded in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and western Illinois, although only a handful of those communes are still extant today.

"According to the principles of actazerity, candy bars are health food if I eat them in an enlightened spiritual state."

Marcus said...

actazerity -- participation in a game in a manner that makes it impossible for the participant to win.

Anonymously entering a definition in The Dictionary Game is the ultimate actazerity.

pottygok said...

actazerity, [ak-tuh-ZER-i-tee] n., plural ac·ta·zer·i·ties

1. An action of a dry or withered nature.

"After the drought, the grasslands rippled in the wind with actazerity."

2. Physical weakness induced by lack of water

"The banzai tree turned brittle because of its actazerity."

3. [archaic] actaserity. A well or other water source that has gone dry.

"The wynde that swept the actaserity/did houl and drive the peeple from thair hovels."



Origin:

Latin āctiōn-(stem of āctiō), equivalent to āct(us)(past participle; see act) + Middle English seer (e), Old English sēar

Marcus said...

Sergei Nikolaievich Actazerity FRS[(or Actaserityi; Ukrainian; (September 14, 1856- February 25, 1953) was a Ukrainian-Russian microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist who pioneered the cycle of life concept.

Actazerity was one of the first researchers to attempt to understand microorganisms outside of the medical context, making him among the first students of microbial ecology and environmental microbiology.

J.E. Stanley said...

This was a very hard choice given the high quality of the definitions. But, I had to go with Marcus Bales as the winner for:

"actazerity -- from baseball jargon, the attitude promulgated and embodied by a combination of oxymoronic qualities such as relaxed awareness or loose seriousness. From those attitudes Manny Acta tried to encourage as a major league manager.

The actazerity of his fiery insouciance impressed us all."

I've always been fascinated by that state (in sports, music and even some of the older video games) one reaches when complete concentration is required, but "thinking" in the traditional sense becomes a hindrance that needs to be suppressed.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau